


The Train from Kansas City

by thegiantkiller (theleaveswant)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Jealousy, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-19
Updated: 2006-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/thegiantkiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. Wash worries that Zoe will leave him for an old boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Train from Kansas City

**Author's Note:**

> For Ficalbum (claimed _The Tigers Have Spoken_ by Neko Case). This is for "The Train from Kansas City". Thanks to hadespuppy for the beta.

“Wǒde tiān that smells amazing,” Wash pronounced, breezing nose-first into the galley. “Your dinner always looks so much better than mine.”

Zoe glanced up at him, trying to suppress the smile that lit her face whenever he was close. “It’s just chili,” she said, stirring the pot.

“Can I taste?” he asked, helping himself to a spoonful before she could discourage him.

“Careful, it’s pretty hot—“

Wash’s eyes bugged out. “Wow,” he said around a mouthful of beans and fire, “that’s good.”

“You look like you’re in pain.”

“I’m in pain because it’s _so good_.”

“Here,” she said, handing him a small white carton, “drink this.”

“Oh no,” he protested, wincing as he tried to swallow the incendiary stew. “That’s the last of your milk ration.” He knew because he’d blitzed through his own share in two days and had watched everyone else’s disappear in under a week.

“Just take it,” she said, “you need it more than me.”

“How does all that capsaicin not kill you?” he asked, gulping at the carton’s spout.

“Happened enough during the war that we got cut off from provisions that many in the unit started carrying their own spice mixes. Had to be strong enough to block out whatever we were actually eating. Sometimes you’d get reminders like grommets or nails.” She killed the heat on the stove. “There’s a chance I’ve done my taste-buds a permanent injury.”

“Huh. Well, thank you very much for the milk.” He put the empty carton on the counter. “Ooh, my lips are still tingling.”

Zoe nodded at the film of milk clinging to his upper lip. “Look, you’ve gone and grown back that awful moustache.” She caught the hand he raised to wipe it off. “Let me take care of that.”

She leaned in to kiss him and Wash eagerly reciprocated.

Later, in Zoe’s bunk, with his back against the wall and Zoe’s head on his bare chest, Wash mused, “You know, I think I’d die without you.” Zoe hummed drowsily. She was always sleepy, after. Fortunately she found Wash’s tendency to get chatty more endearing than annoying. “I know it sounds corny, but I really think I would.”

“Would what?”

“Die without you.”

“Wash—“

“I’m serious. Zoe, I love you more intensely than I ever imagined possible. I didn’t know the ‘verse contained this much love, I certainly never realized I could. And now that I’ve felt that—I’ve become addicted to you, Zoe, and more than that: _dependent_. I’m totally confident I’ll die if that ever gets taken away.”

Zoe twisted around to look in his face for the truth of his words. He was dead honest.

“Very manly and self-reliant, I know. What about you, could you live without me?”

“Wash, that is without question the most romantic thing anyone has ever told me. I don’t know what to say.”

He grinned. “You could say you’ll marry me.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Baby, please don’t start that again.”

“But why not?”

“Because I don’t see what difference it makes.”

“The difference is we’re married.” He gestured like it was self-explanatory.

“But why does that matter? It’s not like it will make us love each other more, and if I ever got it in my head to leave, which I absolutely don’t intend to do, it sure as hell wouldn’t stop me. It don’t make people happier, I’ve seen enough to know that.”

“Not always, no. But it doesn’t necessarily make them less happy, either.” Wash stroked her hair and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I know it’s not your style. I guess—I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, it makes me feel kind of worthless that you don’t want to spend yours with me.”

“I never said I didn’t. I just feel like things are going so well, getting married would be like asking for trouble. I don’t want to mess with a good thing.”

“But I don’t see messing, I see—“

“Look, can we talk about this later? I’d really like to get some sleep before we have to negotiate traffic around Titan.”

Zoe slid down to rest her head on the pillow instead of his torso and Wash reluctantly switched off the light.

In the cockpit the next morning, discussing with Mal the quickest and cheapest route to their next job, Wash caught a wave from a router on Titan. He brought it up on screen and Mal blinked in surprise, covering with a hasty smile. “Corporal Dunne! Not a face I expected to see around here.”

“Sergeant Reynolds—captain of your very own ship, I see. Well done.”

“She’s done right by me so far, and I for one wouldn’t dream of trading her away. Nice suit. You look like you’ve done well for yourself.”

“Well enough. A little bird told me Zoe Alleyne was still flying with you, is that true?”

“She is. I reckon you’ve got something you’d like to say to her.”

“As a matter of fact I have. I can wave again later if now’s inconvenient.”

“Don’t trouble me none. I’ll see if she’s willing to talk to you.” He raised the intercom microphone to his lips. “Zoe, darlin’, we got someone on the Cortex wants a word with you.”

“Who is it? What do they want?”

“His intentions ain’t known to me, but his name’s Carver Dunne.” Zoe was silent. “You want to take this in your bunk?”

“No . . . I’m in the cargo bay, I’ll take it here.”

Mal hung up the microphone. “Wash, you want to shunt it over?”

Wash did so, shutting off his own monitor. “What’s the wariness? Who is this guy?”

“Old war buddy—least, we were stationed together for a bit. Him and Zoe got real close.”

Wash would have accepted that explanation and been more or less content to pursue the issue no further, had the captain not also muttered as he made his exit, “Broke her heart all to bits, leavin’ that rutter.” The door hissed shut behind him.

Hesitantly, already regretting the action, Wash reached to toggle the video connection back on.

“—on’t think that’s such a good idea.”

The cockpit set-up allowed two-way audio but displayed only the incoming caller, so Zoe’s face was invisible to him. He could see only Dunne’s slick grin as he purred charmingly, “But méi huā, I got so excited when I heard you were in the neighbourhood. It’s been so long, we have _so_ much to catch up on! Why won’t you come see me?”

“That’s just not a place I want to go back to, you know?”

“Zoe, please, just give me a chance. I’m only asking for a tiny taste of your sparkling wit. A conversation, that’s all. Maybe over a cup of maté and a steam bun?”

There was a long pause, then Zoe’s barely audible murmur: “I’ll see what I can do.”

The screen went black: wave ended by recipient.

Wash was making toast in the mess when Zoe entered and quietly asked Mal, who was counting ammunition, if she could be the one to make the mail-run when they reached Titan. Mal nodded in reply, and although Wash tried to catch her attention Zoe left without looking at him. Frowning, he abandoned his lunch and skulked off to his quarters.

“Wash?” Zoe asked a while later, as she descended the ladder to his bunk. She blinked in surprise when she turned to face him. “Have you seen my—what are you doing?”

It looked as though he’d upended every drawer in his small wardrobe on top of his sloppily-made bed (which was exactly what had happened) and was in the process of fitting the contents into a pair of battered duffels. “Packing.”

“Why?”

He paused in the middle of rolling a sweater but did not raise his gaze from the compacted wool. “I love Serenity, I really do . . . but without you, I’ve got no reason to stay.”

“What do you mean, without me?”

“You’re not coming back, why should I wait?”

“I’m just going to get the mail, of course I’m coming back.”

“To the ship, maybe. Not to me.”

“Washburne, what in all the great glistening ‘verse are you talking about?”

“I know your old boyfriend’s on Titan.”

“Carver?” She shook her head. “Baby, that was ages ago, years before I even met you.”

“But he’s here now, and you’re going to see him. And who could blame you?” He shoved the sweater into one of the bags and reached for a pair of fatigues. “Who wouldn’t choose big handsome war hero over pale, weedy, gutless, indecisive—“

“Wash . . .”

“—spacestruck idiot of a pilot who can’t throw a punch—“

“Wash!”

“—and plays with dinosaurs and doesn’t know when to shut his mouth—“

“Well you’re right about that last part!” She grabbed his hands, forcing him to look up into her always beautiful but currently concerned and hurt face. “I’m going for a non-alcoholic beverage and a chat with I guy I used to know. Why do you think I’m leaving you?”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t think it was any of your business, and frankly I didn’t realize you’d care so much. I should have known better.” The dark warmth of her eyes deepened to almost black, the way it always did when she was provoked to strong emotion.

“You didn’t tell him, either. About me. You didn’t say you were with somebody.”

“You listened to the wave?” She sighed. “Of course you did. No, I didn’t tell him. I wanted to. I tried, but I didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t just blurt it out. I was going to tell him in person, that’s why I agreed to meet him. We knew each other long enough I felt like I owed him that much. That doesn’t mean I want to get back together with him!”

“Mal said leaving him broke your heart.”

Zoe laughed bitterly. “That how he phrased it? Honey, it weren’t the leaving left me broken, but the reason for it. Carver cheated on me, at least twice that I know of, and lied to my face about it. Trust me, I have no desire to go back to that.”

“Then why are you even talking to him?”

She shrugged. “He may have been a fèiwù boyfriend, but he was a good friend. Though truthfully he could stand to learn a lot about both from you. Could learn a lot from you about a few other things, come to that.”

Wash stared into her chocolate eyes, relieved but not contented. “What I said before, about dying if you left me? I really meant it. Maybe not instantly, but literally. I’d develop an ulcer and waste away in tormented agony. And it’s selfish . . . but I’m terrified, thinking you don’t reciprocate.”

“My aversion’s to marrying, not to you. The ‘verse ain’t exactly friendly towards happiness, it seems to me. I feel like getting hitched we’d be drawing too much attention to ourselves, lining us up for some kinda tragic ending. Going sour, or leaving one of us in weeds. And that thought scares the hell out of me.”

“You never answered my question, though. Could you live without me?”

They stared at each other for a long moment, long enough that Wash felt his throat drying out from the intensity of her gaze and swallowed impotently to relieve it.

“Honestly?” Zoe finally spoke. “Yes, I probably could. But I pray I never have to. Wash, I want to spent every day of living that I have left to me, and every night and every twilight passage, as close to you as I can be. Would I die from the loss of you? I don’t know. But I never, ever want to find out.”

She placed a hand on either side of his face and leaned in so close that he could feel the breeze from her eyelashes. “And if it takes a holding of hands and a preacher’s pronouncing to get that through your thick skull, then so be it.”

“You mean—?”

“We’ll send Carver Dunne a piece of the cake.”


End file.
